Funding for research on digitalisation and cyber security in the European High North

26.10.2016

NordForsk, a research facilitation and funding organisation under the Nordic Council of Ministers, awarded the Arctic Centre of the University of Lapland approx. 864 000 euros for research on digitalisation and cyber security in the European High North. The three-year research project is led by Associate Professor Kamrul Hossain, who is also the director of the Northern Institute for Environmental and Minority Law at the Arctic Centre.

The research project maps the opportunities and threats residing in digitalisation in cooperation with the regional actors. It aims at supporting digital development which is able to meet the local needs and integrate local participants in its steering.

– On the one hand, digitalisation opens up fresh opportunities, for instance, for organising business functions, health and social services, as well as education. In addition, it provides new platforms for communality and identity formation and can aid in mitigating the effects of detrimental human activities on the environment. On the other hand, it brings forth new threats related to cybercrime, privacy protection, lacking or deficient e-skills, and digital divides, says Kamrul Hossain.

In the project, digitalisation and cyber security are approached from the human security perspective.

– People living in the northernmost areas of Finland, Sweden and Norway stand in the heart of the research project instead of technology, infrastructure, state or society. We aim at bringing forth the particular problems that the northern people encounter with regard to digitalisation. This is a novel opening in cyber security thinking, tells Mirva Salminen who works as researcher at the Arctic Centre.

The undertaking strives to mitigate fears and contradictions related to the everyday life of individuals and communities in the High North. Simultaneously, it empowers and engages them in constructing the digital future across national borders. Through a participatory and comparative multidisciplinary research framework best practices and ideas arising from the region will be implemented in the region. In the process, solutions to the challenges of so-far exclusive and discriminating digital trajectories will be provided.

The research project is carried out from 2017 to 2019 in cooperation with the UiT Arctic University of Norway (UiT), Institute for Security and Development (ISDP) in Sweden and Swansea University in the UK.